System and method for generating and merging activity-entry reports utilizing activity-entry hierarchy and hierarchical information of the activity-entries

ABSTRACT

The invention provides for a system and method for activity-entry reporting and activity-entry report generation by utilizing a drag and drop mechanism that allows users to merge submitted activities in order to generate new activities. These activities are contained within activity reports that can be modified and merged by other users in an effort to develop combined activity reports that maintain the traceability of the merged activities.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/558,672 filed on Dec. 2, 2014 entitled “System And Method ForGenerating And Merging Activity-Entry Reports Utilizing Activity-EntryHierarchy And Hierarchical Information Of The Activity-Entries”, whichclaims priority to U.S. Provisional Application 61/910,512 filed on Dec.2, 2013, entitled “System And Method For Generating And Merging ActivityEntry Reports Utilizing Activity-Entry Hierarchy And HierarchicalInformation Of The Activity-Entries”, the entirety of both areincorporated herein.

BACKGROUND OF INVENTION 1. Field of Invention

The present invention relates generally to the field of enterpriseactivity reporting and report generation. More specifically, theinvention relates to software and related computer programs orapplications which can generate activity reports by creating newactivity-entries, merging previously created activity-entries andreports, while maintaining activity-entry hierarchy. The merging of theactivity-entries can be achieved through various user interface codedfeatures including the system's drag and drop functionality, selectingmultiple activity-entries and merging or any other technicalimplementation.

2. Description of the Related Art

Presently, current software systems allow one or more users to enterwork activities, track actions, track time, such as billable time,against a client or matter. Reports and invoices can be generatedthrough these systems and they will compile the time of all users whorecorded time for a given client or matter. However, these systems arenot used to report activities, compile or merge activity-entries amongstseveral managers who can select and choose which tasks andactivity-entries to report and generate reports which can then be movedup a hierarchy to another user who can merge and manage multiple reportsfrom multiple managers. Therefore, what is needed is an activity-entryrecording and reporting software and system which enables users torecord activity-entries, import activity entries from other users, mergemultiple activity-entries, record time against those activity-entriesand allow manager users to consolidate, approve, merge, and createreports of activities across many users.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION

This summary of the invention is provided to introduce concepts in asimplified form that are further described in the detailed descriptionof the invention. This summary is not intended to identify key oressential inventive concepts of the claimed subject.

The present invention provides a software based system and method foractivity reporting and report generation while maintaining the hierarchyof the activity-entries. The report generation software of the systemincludes a merge capability which enables users to merge via drag anddrop function; import and merge function; entry or activity selectionand merge; as well as merge all or merge by selected criteria. Thesystem allows for users to create activity-entries (hereafter“activities”) that describe their activities, accomplishments, andstatus updates on a given project segmented by time such as minutes,hours, days, or weeks. The software of the system allows theseactivities to be submitted by the user and available to the next levelsupervisor who can approve and then create his/her own activity statusreport containing new activities that were generated by merging thesubmitted activities of selected users through the utilization of thesystem's merge functionality. Additionally, the system enables thesupervisor to create new activities of his own. Traceability of anyactivities submitted by users of the system will be maintained by thesystem and can be quickly viewed by any system user with properauthorization and access level. Traceability is similar to versioncontrol and allows any activity which is merged or copied to retaininformation about the user that created the activity (or activityentry). The software and system also maintains the hierarchy of theactivities. Merged activities at any level can be traced back tooriginal activity-entries. The system also stores or saves theattributes of each activity-entry like creation date, user information,task details, project details or any other information linked to theactivity-entry.

Further, the present invention provides an activity merging andreporting system comprising: at least one processor device connected toat least one memory device wherein the processor is remotely accessibleby a first user and a second user; the processor device having at leastone software application resident thereon, wherein the softwareapplication is configured to: provide a graphical interface enabling thefirst user and the second user to enter information relevant to anactivity; wherein the system stores, in a database associated with theprocessor, activity information and user information including the firstusers role and hierarchy level and the second users role and hierarchylevel; and the graphical interface enabling a third user to mergeactivities of the first user with activities of the second user togenerate a merged activity; wherein the merged activity maintains theactivity information attributed to each user, the user information, andthe hierarchy information and stores the merged activity information inthe database.

Still further, the system of the present invention can be configured,upon entry of the activity information by the first user or second user,to prompt the third user to approve the activity reports or information.The system also allows the third user to enter activity informationrelated to their activities. The system also allows for the generationof reports of the merged activities, with or without activities whichwere not merged, and such reports may be digital files such as a PDF orCSV file. The merge function may be initiated by a drag and dropfunction accessible by the third user through the graphical userinterface.

The present invention also provides a method for generating and mergingactivity information comprising the steps of: accessing a processorbased system by a first user; wherein the first user enters informationthrough a graphical user interface software based system on at least oneactivity; the system then saves the activity information, the userinformation, and the hierarchy level of the first user in a databaseassociated with the processor; accessing the processor based system by asecond user; wherein the second user enters information on the at leastone activity; the system then saves the activity information, the userinformation, and the hierarchy level of the second user in the database;accessing the processor based system by a third user who merges theactivity information of the first user with the activity information ofthe second user to generate a merged activity; wherein the mergedactivity maintains the activity information attributed to each user, theuser information, and the hierarchy information and saves the mergedactivity information in the database. The method further includes thestep of having the third user approve of the activity information by thefirst user or second user prior to merging. The method further includingthe step of having the third user enter information on at least oneactivity and saving the activity information, the user information, andthe hierarchy level of the third user in a database associated with theprocessor system. The method further including the step of generatingthe merged activities into a report in the form of a digital file. Themethod further including the step of initiating the merge function uponuse of a drag and drop function accessible by the third user through thegraphical user interface.

The system of the present invention can be accessed through a dynamicsecure and password-protected portal via a server, such as a privateserver, or a cloud-based server. The system's software and applicationsrun on a processor which could be a wearable computing device (i.e.,google glass, watches etc.), portable tablet, smartphone or personalcomputer.

These and other objects, features, and/or advantages may accrue fromvarious aspects of embodiments of the present invention, as described inmore detail below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various exemplary embodiments of this invention will be described indetail, wherein like reference numerals refer to identical or similarcomponents or steps, with reference to the following figures, wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts a system diagram of an exemplary architectureimplementation of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a workflow diagram showing the process of the presentinvention by which activities can be created and activity reports can begenerated.

FIG. 3 is a workflow diagram showing the process by which new activityreports can be created by merging previously submitted activities byother users in an effort to develop combined activity reports.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

Particular embodiments of the present invention will now be described ingreater detail with reference to the figures.

As shown in FIG. 1, the present invention in an exemplary embodimentprovides for a main system 102 which comprises of one or more servers112 connected to one or more databases 104, 106, 108, 110. The system102 may be installed locally, in a wide area network, and in cloud-basedarchitecture.

Various applications, software, and programs reside on the one or moreservers 112 that allow various users to access the system's interfaceusing their laptop, personal computer, smartphone, wearable computingdevice or tablet, 116, 118. The personal computing devices 116, 118 mayaccess the system 102 remotely via an internet, a Wi-Fi connection, orit may connect via a mobile telecommunication network. Further, thepersonal computing devices 116, 118 may have an application downloadedand deployed on the device (such as a mobile application). Theseapplications, software, and programs may be local to the network ordevice, web-based, or some combination. User's may access the system 102through the internet 114, local network, wide network, ortelecommunication network to interact with the systems variousapplications and services.

As shown in FIG. 2, the present invention provides method and systemthat allows for the creation of activities and activity reports bysystem users 201, 203, 205, 225. The system of the present inventionalso allows for the creation of new activities generated by way ofmerging other user's activities though the system's drag and drop,import and merge, or other mechanism. The end result of the mergingprocess is a combined activity report that consists of activitiesentered into the system by at least one user.

The present invention allows for users 201, 203, 205, 225 to access thesystem and log their general activities, activities for a specificproject or tasks within the system's database. Once within the system,the user 201, 203, 205, 225 of the present invention can create newactivity reports 211, 213, 215 and modify existing activity reports.These activity reports contain a user's entered periodic activities.These periodic activities (hereinafter referred to as “activities”) thatare entered into the system by a user may be specific tasks the userworked on, the status of those tasks, accomplishments completed andmilestones reached for a specific project.

By way of example, User 201 could be a consultant that is developingsoftware code for a client's website. During one day of the workweek, hemay work on a variety of assigned tasks, such as building a websitedatabase, developing the site's login capability, and developing a patchfor a security concern. Throughout the day or at the end of the day, theuser 201 will log onto the system and create an activity entry for eachof the tasks that he worked on during the day. Each activity will alsobe designated a status, such a pending, incomplete, complete, abandoned,and/or late. These activities will be compiled in an activity report211, 213, 215 generated by the user.

Once a user 201, 203, 205 completes his activity report, he submits theactivity report 215 to his next level supervisor user 225 for hisapproval 240. If the report is approved (step 240), the supervisor user225 will merge (step 245) the user's activity report 211, 213, 215 withthose of other users working on the same or different projects. If, instep 240, the activity report is not approved, then the supervisor 225will require the user 201, 203, 205 to modify the report accordinglyuntil approval (240) is granted by the supervisor 225.

The supervisor 225 can merge 245 the submitted activity entries byutilizing the system's merge functions. The software of the presentinvention provides one or more merge functions which include: a drag anddrop function; an import and merge function; and a select and mergefunction in order to generate a combined activity report. When thesubmitted activities of other users are merged, new activities arecreated utilizing the information contained in the submitted activities.

The system creates a new merged activity by combining the content of theother user's activities. The system maintains the traceability among themerged activities.

The merging process is accomplished by the supervisor user first viewinganother user's submitted activity report and selecting a specificactivity entry or the entire activity report by “grabbing it” thendragging it into a new activity report or selecting the activity (via acheckbox, radio button or other implementation) and pressing the “merge”button. This process can be repeated by selecting, grabbing, anddragging other users' activity entries or activity reports into thesupervisor's new activity report, thus generating a combined activityreport. The ability of the system to generate combined activity reportallows for the users' submitted reports to be easily merged andaccessible via one report with the same formatting.

Additionally, the supervisor 225 can also create his own activities 230which can be combined in an activity report 250. These can be activitiesthat he personally worked on, modifications to submitted activitiesother users worked on, or activities worked on by other users but neversubmitted to the supervisor for his approval.

Once the supervisor's combined activity report 250 is completed, it canthen be submitted 255 to the next level supervisor user for his reviewand approval. This higher-level supervisor user can repeat the processby utilizing the systems merge capabilities including the drag and dropcapabilities and merge submitted periodic activities and activityreports from the lowest level users and lower level supervisor usersalike into a new combined activity report. This process is repeateduntil it reaches the highest supervisor who then finalizes the reportand submits 255 the report to the client.

The system's ability to merge several activities to develop newactivities displayed in combined activity reports is further depicted inFIG. 3. Initially, lower level users 302, 304, 306 create separateactivity reports that contain three periodic activity entries each: User302 (A1, A2, and A3), User 304 (A4, A5, A6), and User 306 (A7, A9, A10).These reports containing the periodic activity entries are submitted totheir supervisors 308, 310. User 308 creates a combined activity reportthat includes four periodic activity entries (A10, A11, A12, A13) thatwere generated by merging the selected activities of User A, User B, andUser C. For example, User 308's A10 activity was created by merging User302's A1 and A2 activities. Similarly, User 308's A13 activity wascreated by merging User 302's A3 activity, User 304's A5 activity, andUser 306's A8 activity.

User 310 also performs that same actions and creates a combined activityreport that includes activities that were generated by merging User 302,User 304, and User 306's activities.

Once User 308 and User 310's activity reports are completed, it is thensubmitted to User 325 who then develops his own combined activity reportwith new activities that were generated by merging User 308 and User310's activities. For example, User 325 might have two activities (A17,A18) where A17 is generated by merging User 308's A10 activity with User310's A14 activity. Activity A18 might be generated by combining User308's A10, A11 activities with User 310's A14, A15, and A16 activities.

Regarding the software, as previously mentioned, the system operating onthe one or more servers 112 and interacting with the one or moredatabases 104, 106, 108, 110. The software operates to interact with thedatabases and the stored activities and the stored attributes of eachactivity. Upon receipt of a merge command, the system identifies theappropriate activities within the database and creates a new combinedactivity. However, the new combined activity merges and retains theactivities and related activity descriptions and times, the useridentification, and the hierarchy of each user in the activity report.The combined activity is stored in the database as a new activity withstructured data for the activities, users, and hierarchy.

Throughout the process, the present invention maintains the traceabilityof the activity entries after they are merged into the combined activityreports. System maintains the sanctity of each activity-entry created byany user. At the time of merge, the system creates a copy of theoriginal activity and copies the content to the new merged activity. Thenew merged activity is owned by the new user who created the mergedactivity. System creates a record of the parent-child relationship ofthe activities at all level. For example, if User X uses an activity ofUser C, which in turn is used by User Z, the system will be able totrace the connection of user Z's activity to the activity of both User Xand User C.

Although the system is ideally suited to enable users to create mergedactivity reports the system can also be used to collaborate ondocuments, time reports, billing and invoicing and related tasks. Byproviding a collaborative tool which can be used by many users whichmerge capabilities for higher level users to drag and drop documents andcollaborative projects can quickly be assembled while maintaining thecontributor information at all levels in the project.

It will be recognized by those skilled in the art that changes, ormodifications may be made to the above described embodiment withoutdeparting from the broad inventive concepts of the invention. It isunderstood therefore that the invention is not limited to the particularembodiment which is described but is intended to cover all modificationsand changes within the scope and spirit of the invention.

We claim:
 1. An activity merging reporting system that constitutes asystem, the system comprising: at least one processor device connectedto at least one memory device, the at least one processor is remotelyaccessible by a first user and a second user, and the at least onememory device including a database associated with the processor; the atleast one processor device having at least one software applicationresident thereon, wherein the at least one software application, asimplemented by the at least one processor device, is configured to:provide a first graphical interface enabling the first user to enterfirst user activity information relevant to an activity, the first useractivity information associated with a first user role and a first userhierarchy level in the database; and provide a second graphicalinterface enabling the second user to enter second user activityinformation relevant to the activity, the second user activityinformation associated a second user role and a second user hierarchylevel in the database; merge, by the system, the first user activityinformation and the second user activity information to generate mergedactivity information; generate, by the system analyzing the first useractivity information and the second user activity information, atraceability record of the parent-child relationship of the activitybetween the first user activity information and the second user activityinformation; the merged activity information maintains (a) theassociation of first user activity information with the first user roleand the first user hierarchy level; and (b) the association of thesecond user activity information with the second user role and thesecond user hierarchy level; the merged activity information includingthe traceability record of the parent child relationship of the activitybetween the first user activity information and the second user activityinformation; the traceability data being separate from associationbetween the first user activity information and the first user; and thesystem storing the merged activity information in the database.
 2. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein upon entry of the first user activityinformation by the first user a third user is prompted to approve thefirst user activity information.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein uponentry of the second user activity information by the second user a thirduser is prompted to approve the second user activity information.
 4. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the system provides for a third user to enterthird user activity information related to the activity of the thirduser.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the first user activityinformation and the second user activity information are merged, by thesystem, into a report in the form of a digital file.
 6. The system ofclaim 1, the merge of the first user activity information of the firstuser with the second user activity information of the second user, togenerate merged activity information, constitutes a merge function, andthe merge function is initiated by a drag and drop function accessibleby a third user through a third graphical user interface.